The Sage Encyclopedia of Qualitative Research Methods

Advances in understanding alkali-activated materials

The development of new, sustainable, low-CO2 construction materials is essential if the global construction industry is to reduce the environmental footprint of its activities, which is incurred particularly through the production of Portland cement. One type of non-Portland cement that is attracting particular attention is based on alkali-aluminosilicate chemistry, including the class of binders that have become known as geopolymers. These materials offer technical properties comparable to those of Portland cement, but with a much lower CO2 footprint and with the potential for performance advantages over traditional cements in certain niche applications. This review discusses the synthesis of alkali-activated binders from blast furnace slag, calcined clay (metakaolin), and fly ash, including analysis of the chemical reaction mechanisms and binder phase assemblages that control the early-age and hardened properties of these materials, in particular initial setting and long-term durability. Perspectives fo...

Geopolymers and Related Alkali-Activated Materials

A Study of Teams: How It All Began The Apollo Syndrome Teams Containing Similar Personalities Identifying further Team Roles Team Leadership The Missing Team Roles Developing an inventory Unsuccessful teams Winning teams Ideal team size Features of good members of a team Teams in Public Affairs How Belbin reports developed Case Studies in Using Belbin

Management teams: Why they succeed or fail

The use of authentic activities within online learning environments has been shown to have many benefits for learners in online units and courses. There has been renewed interest in the role of student activities within course units, as constructivist philosophy and advances in technology impact on educational design and practice. Courses based on these principles have been used successfully across a wide variety of discipline areas. In spite of the growing evidence of the success of authentic learning environments, they are not without their problems. In this paper we discuss patterns of engagement that have emerged from our own research on authentic learning tasks, in particular, the initial reluctance to willingly immerse in learning scenarios that some students experience, and the need for the suspension of disbelief before engaging in the task. The paper proposes ten characteristics of authentic activities, based on educational theory and research, which has been used as criteria for the selection of existing online units or courses for in-depth investigation. The paper includes a short review of the literature, a description of the research and some preliminary findings and identification of issues related to the necessity for students to willingly suspend disbelief in order to fully engage in learning scenarios based on authentic tasks.

Patterns of engagement in authentic online learning environments

Quantitative kinetic and structural analysis of geopolymers. Part 1. The activation of metakaolin with sodium hydroxide

Quantitative kinetic and structural analysis of geopolymers. Part 2. Thermodynamics of sodium silicate activation of metakaolin

Using fly ash to partially substitute metakaolin in geopolymer synthesis

Universities around the world have become increasingly aware of the need to be able to demonstrate, in a quantifiable manner, the skills and attributes that their graduates are imbued with during their learning experience. Engineering schools, similar to other professional program providers, have been aware of this need for over a decade and it is a requirement of accreditation that engineering schools must be able to demonstrate that their graduates possess the nominated Engineers Australia (EA) attributes to a substantial degree. This paper describes how the School of Engineering in Tasmania has been able to incorporate and develop graduate attributes by good course design and how it validates that it achieves the required EA graduate outcomes. The paper also refers to the recent guidelines for accreditation of engineering programs in the United States of America and the United Kingdom.

Incorporating and Developing Graduate Attributes via Program Design

Inexpensive roads constructed by using local knowledge of material behavior have been shown to be capable of meeting rural traffic requirements without the need for importation of hard and expensive quarried crushed rock or gravel. In Australia, low-cost, low-volume roads are typically rural roads constructed in a broad range of operating environments, varying from arid to tropical. The areas that contain the longest length of rural roads, however, are arid or semiarid and are often subjected to periods with low levels of precipitation and high levels of evaporation, frequently followed by periods of intense rainfall. Locally available materials for road making may not meet the usual standard road authority requirements for high-quality aggregate and are thus termed "marginal," "nonstandard," or even "inferior." Because these materials are a resource that cannot be ignored, locally derived specifications are formulated for specific materials to allow more efficient expansion and maintenance of road networks in remote rural areas. Many of the subgrades within arid and semiarid areas are sensitive to water ingress and are termed "cracking" or "expansive" clays. The combination of hostile environment, poor subgrade, and marginal construction aggregates means that the engineer must take an entrepreneurial approach when developing the rural road infrastructure. Some of the methods used to develop and maintain a highway infrastructure for remote rural areas in Australia are outlined, with the Western Queensland region used for illustrative purposes.

Frank Bullen

Papers

Quantitative kinetic and structural analysis of geopolymers. Part 1. The activation of metakaolin with sodium hydroxide

Quantitative kinetic and structural analysis of geopolymers. Part 2. Thermodynamics of sodium silicate activation of metakaolin

Using fly ash to partially substitute metakaolin in geopolymer synthesis

Incorporating and Developing Graduate Attributes via Program Design

Design and Construction of Low-Cost, Low-Volume Roads in Australia